Obama's new regulatory czar

San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro, a rising star in the Democratic Party, got most of the attention at the White House Friday afternoon when President Barack Obama announced him as the new choice for secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

But Shaun Donovan, the outgoing HUD secretary, will be the one with more power during the last two-and-a-half years of Obama’s time in the White House.

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Donovan, the nominee to take over the Office of Management and Budget, won’t have a huge public profile, but will be key in shaping Obama’s legacy and advancing a progressive agenda through federal regulations.

Current and former administration aides see Donovan’s appointment as directly fitting into the larger turn to executive authority that’s been led by Obama counselor John Podesta — and potentially, if Podesta leaves the White House next year as he’s promised, a potential heir to leading that effort for the remainder of Obama’s term.

Especially before the 2012 election, the White House slowed many regulations due to political fears. But with his “pen and phone” strategy, Obama’s been looking to move forcefully around Congress, and Donovan sees himself as an aggressive, progressive addition.

Other OMB directors “said no,” Donovan told Obama upon being offered the job, according to a person familiar with the conversation. “That’s not who I am. I’m going to find ways to do things, not to not do things.”

There’s a lot he’ll have the opportunity to do, from digging in on the renewed attention to Environmental Protection Agency regulations — OMB already has been reviewing the draft standards limiting carbon dioxide emissions on existing power plants and EPA will release those standards June 2, with a final version due in June 2015 — to the long-pending executive order banning LGBT discrimination among federal contractors.

More EPA rules are expected as part of the continuing rollout of Obama’s Climate Action Plan put out next year, and OMB will be at the center of signing off on all of them. But the emissions standards are the most significant, with the potential to either be arguably the biggest single measure the nation’s taken to address climate change — but require not being so oppressive that they put plants out of business while not being so loose that they’re totally ineffectual.

Even more complicated politically will be the executive actions on immigration that Obama’s expected to announce over the summer if the White House’s waning last hope for a pre-midterms deal with the House falls through. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is currently conducting a review to make recommendations, with White House input, but any decision — to further alter the administration’s approach to deportations, for example — would eventually route through Donovan at OMB.

Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer also has met with allies on the Hill and among progressive groups in recent weeks, soliciting ideas for new executive orders and actions.

All of that will put Donovan eagerly in the center, the newest addition to the president’s inner circle at the White House.

“He is a progressive who will be in a place to get progressive things done,” said one person familiar with Donovan’s record.

That’s the management part of the job. The budget part is going to be even trickier.